


Given in Substitution

by Providentia67



Series: Mayura [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Good Intentions, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Nathalie Sancoeur, Self-Doubt, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 20:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21125003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Providentia67/pseuds/Providentia67
Summary: Time and loss has taken their toll on the Agreste mansion, and failure weighs heavy on its inhabitants. With the growing ache of everything they have failed to achieve resting on their shoulders, Mayura watches Hawk Moth's frustration grow.  Watches it tear at the seams of Gabriel's ever fraying relationship with his son.  Watches the life she wishes she could build slip ever further away.But when an argument spirals into Hawk Moth setting his akuma's sights on someone they both care for, she has to draw the line.She won't let Hawk Moth akumatize his own son.  If that means betraying the fragile, hopeful trust that has been growing between herself and Chat Noir... then so be it.





	Given in Substitution

_ Why do you always act like you need to keep things away from me! Just let me help you father, please! _

Nathalie wishes things were so simple that Gabriel could confide in Adrien all the secrets he keeps. That what kept him-them both silent was something so harmless as pride or some self-imposed rule of parental engagement. But such is not the life they live, and the ravenous hunger of Nathalie’s demons could only be matched by that of Gabriel’s. 

_ Fine! I get it, okay. I know you think I’m completely useless. You don’t need to pretend I’m anything but a disappointment to you anymore. _

Adrien’s steps echo like the cold hammer of judgement as he flies down the staircase, barely pausing a moment to mumble an apology as he inadvertently clips Nathalie at their base. Her breath comes short and knees falter when faced with his surprising amount of force, the boy is becoming more a man every day and his strength is proof. But he catches her before she can stumble. Nathalie’s heart bleeds at the deep-rooted fear she can see in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” she assures him before Adrien can release the outpour of apologies and concern she can feel riding the edge of his lips. She glances over his shoulder to the door and gives a shallow nod. His desire to flee the confines of his home wars against his selfless need to see her health assured so fiercely, Nathalie can almost see the conflict in his head. “Go.”

Adrien bites his lower lip, but a glance up the stairs to the empty landing where Gabriel has already retreated to his rooms seals the decision. The teenager is gone before his bodyguard can process the atmosphere in the room enough to even consider trying to stop him.

A weary smile makes its way onto Nathalie’s lips and she hopes Adrien can enjoy the few hours of freedom this little outburst has bought him. She grips the guardrail of the stairs in a white-knuckled grip and recovers her breath. She has been tapping into Mayura’s powers too often, and fighting with the centuries-old sentimonster for control all those nights ago is still wreaking havoc on her body. 

Still, if she cannot help the son through whatever argument has erupted without her knowledge, she can still comfort the father. A moment for composure and to straighten her spine and Nathalie is making her way to the hidden elevator that will lead to Hawk Moth’s garden. 

He is, surprisingly, not standing before the glass confines preserving Emilie’s body. Nathalie tries not to let her eyes drift in the direction of the woman adrift in serene repose. It is perhaps some unfounded fear, but she cannot help but believe that if she looks at the face of the woman whose husband she loves, whose son she dearly cares for, she will see eyes dark with hatred staring back at her. Instead she finds Gabriel, with his arms crossed and shoulders tight with tension staring out at the opened window overlooking Paris, and keeps her focus on him.

The akumas are drawn to him, as always. White, fluttering butterflies scattering in waves as Nathalie strides past them only to settle as she passes, some on the milkweed plants levels beneath, others on the ground, and even a rare few come to rest on Gabriel’s shoulders.

His eyes are trained at the morning sky, but he sees none of it. Does not even notice as Nathalie settles four steps back and three to the left, her customary position and as close as she allows herself without express need. 

She watches, silent as one brave akuma crawls from the shoulder of Gabriel’s suit, down his arm, and stops at the base of his thumb. His expression does not change from one that is calculated and blank as he brings up that arm and slowly rotates his hand, urging the butterfly to settle on his palm.

It feels like hours, though it could have been no longer than the span of a few minutes before Gabriel speaks. “I’m driving him farther and farther away, Nathalie.”

She adjusts the glasses on her face to give her hands something to do and draws in a careful breath. “It is for his own good, sir.” Adrien is… too kind for the work that they must do. If he knew, had even an inkling of the lengths she and Gabriel have gone to for his sake, for Emilie’s, Nathalie fears down to her soul that it would break him.

Better to ask for forgiveness, when the deed was done.

Gabriel’s fingers curl around the akuma, caging it in place, but not crushing it. The creature flutters, agitated, and its fellows flee from their perches on the man’s shoulders to find safer harbour. “I can feel it,” he says, eyes sliding shut and chin turned up. The miraculous on his shirt collar pulses an ethereal, violet glow. “The pain he feels, the rejection. I never intended to hurt him.” There is remorse there, and sorrow. Nathalie knows all too well that what shattered remains of Gabriel’s heart he has mustered belong almost entirely to his only son.

“He knows, sir. In his own way.” She doesn’t know how to explain the crippling suffocation she has seen in the boy’s eyes. How does one say to a man so afraid of what the world could do to the boy he loves, that he should let go?

Gabriel looks down to the struggling akuma in his grip and eases his fingers, allowing the butterfly to spread its wings with ease. It hovers, lifting its legs from the palm of his hand for a moment, then settles itself back down. The crow’s feet at the corners of Gabriel’s eyes ease and something melts in his posture. “Perhaps I am being selfish,” he says. “Giving him no part, no say in any of this.”

Nathalie grips the tablet in her hands like a shield against her chest. “You can’t tell him.” 

Gabriel sighs. “I know, Nathalie.”

“He admires Ladybug and Chat Noir. He won’t understand.”

“I _ know_!” 

She is unprepared for the vehemence as Gabriel turns his head and snaps at her. Stumbling back a step as the akuma at last is frightened off and flies away somewhere below. Her heart pounds unsteady in her chest and she fights back a cough as her breath comes short from the shock.

Try as she might to control her reaction, Gabriel seems to notice he has rattled her and forcibly calms himself down. “I know, Nathalie. But I think I’ve discovered the answer.” There is something haunted in his blue eyes, and Nathalie swallows back a well of doubt.

“The answer?”

In lieu of a response, Gabriel turns his back on her and summons Nooroo from whatever sanctuary the kwami had sequestered himself in. “Nooroo, darkwings rise.” The akumas swarm around Gabriel, leaving a whirlwind that forces Nathalie to put a hand up to hold her glasses in place until they dissipate. When they do, it is Hawk Moth standing in Gabriel’s place.

Nathalie steps forward until she is standing just off Hawk Moth’s shoulder. “What are you planning, Hawk Moth?”

With only the lower half of his face visible, the smile that turns up on Hawk Moth’s lips appears all the more stretched, manic. The dark swirl of evil starts to coalesce in his open palm. “A fitting champion,” he says.

There is ice running down Nathalie’s spine and her tablet clatters to the ground without her realizing her fingers have gone numb.

_ No. _

“Sir?”

An akuma strays too close and Hawk Moth closes his fist around it. Letting the corrupting influence of his miraculous infect the creature and leave the cracked, blackened akuma in its wake.

“The pain of loss, the fear of rejection. The hollow ache of love without anchor. There are no better seeds from which to sow the destruction of Ladybug and Chat Noir.” He sets the akuma free and it limps its way through the air, struggling under the weight of its darkness. Where the white butterflies soar effortlessly, this one is slow going to reach Hawk Moth’s eye level. “My son, your anguish is not without purpose. Your endless pit of mourning will be your strength.”

Nathalie can feel her chest pounding. Duusu, reacting to her distress, has swathed her in the mantle of Mayura without her calling. “Hawk Moth, wait.”

“Fly to him, my little akuma. Go to Adrien, and evilize-”

“Stop!” She catches his wrist before thought can match deed, and in an instant Mayura’s dampened but not inconsiderable strength is battling Hawk Moth for control. He eyes her, furious and unsure all at once and though inside Nathalie is screaming at herself to let go, and increasingly more vocal part is forcing Gabriel’s hand down. 

Confused, the akuma halts its ascent and comes to land on the hand Hawk Moth is resting on the head of his cane.

Mayrua pays little mind as she locks eyes with Hawk Moth. “You can’t do this,” she tells him. 

Stronger than she is, Hawk Moth snatches his wrist away. “I have to.”

“He’s your son.” 

“That is why I know he will be perfect.” Hawk Moth looks down to the akuma atop his cane and Mayura can see that his hands are shaking. “I can’t let it all be for nothing.”

It won’t be, Mayura will see to it one way or another. But there is a line that must be drawn somewhere, and she is making it here. “Not him. We’re doing this for Adrien, right?” She stares, insistent, until she gets a nod from Hawk Moth. “Then we can’t let him become a victim of this battle. I know you understand, I’ve seen you put victory aside just for his sake.”

Hawk Moth shakes his head. “There’s no one else strong enough. I’ve tried- we’ve tried everything.” The anger is building itself back up in him and Hawk Moth faces her again to rage. “Who else! If not Adrien, who else suffers as much for this battle!”

She feels what was once a position of strength begin to give way beneath her like sand. “We’ll… we’ll find someone.” Anyone.

“Who!”

The akuma is once again reacting to Hawk Moth’s obsession, fluttering back up into the air and eager to be dispatched. Mayura knows that either she must give Hawk Moth a suitable target, or he will fall to the one he has already chosen.

Her mind screams and her heart echoes, _ not Adrien_.

Mayura’s eyes slam shut as she searches her brain for someone, anyone. Anybody who might possibly hide a pain Hawk Moth will find enticing enough. Coming up empty, she looks out the window and sees that just beyond the gates of the mansion, Adrien is talking on his cellphone. Presumably, the wide sweeping of his arms and the guarded hunch of his shoulders means he is relaying his own frustrations to one of his friends.

He turns his back, and as the shadow of a passing cloud travels overhead it comes to her. An answer that will spare Adrien, if not Mayura’s heart. Below, the boy seems to come to a conclusion and hangs up his phone, sparing a moment to turn and glare up at the mansion before disappearing down the Parisian streets.

“So,” says Hawk Moth. “You see, I have no choice. Go, my akuma-”

“Chat Noir.”

The name, the title renders Hawk Moth mute.

Mayura clenches her fists to keep them from shaking. “I said, Chat Noir.”

“Impossible,” Hawk Moth tosses his hand and begins to pace, running possibilities through his head even as he verbally rejects the idea. “If I could not even turn Queen Bee, I don’t see how-”

“Search for his pain.” Mayura forces the words out as quickly as she can, not wanting the taste of them in her mouth any longer than she absolutely needs to. “You’ll see.”

Hawk Moth’s steps slow to a contemplative stillness and his face upturns, the powers of his miraculous casting themselves outward in search of something beyond Mayura’s perceptions. He stalls, a hollow echo ringing from the last pass of his cane. Mayura flips open her fan, hiding her apprehension behind violet feathers. She both hopes and dreads what Hawk Moth will find in his search.

“Nothing.”

“What?” Mayura does not let herself dwell on the break in her voice.

Hawk Moth shakes his head. “There’s nothing. Adrien… his grief sings to me, and others too.” He lifts his can and brings it down again. “But nothing that resembles the cat.”

Mayura’s shoulders drop and she snaps her fan shut. Breath held tight behind closed teeth she steps forward and cups Hawk Moth’s trembling hands in her palm. “Because he has not activated his miraculous. But I know… he aches.”

He looks up. Behind his mask Hawk Moth’s eyes crinkle in confusion. He is so consumed by the drowning waves of his son’s pain, she suspects that it is blinding him to everything else. “How?”

Forcefully, with deep and painful intention she pushes the memory of Chat Noir pressed against her side away from her mind. Ignores the ghost of pressure against her hand as she’d held him close to offer him warmth. Mayura swallows the knot of guilt in her throat and speaks. “My sentimonster. He let slip to her that he knew Ladybug to be in love with someone else.” 

“And?” He still does not understand.

“Have you ever known a teenager to handle unrequited love well? Take that into consideration with the amount of times he’s stood in the line of fire for her.” A note of anger might crawl into her words. “One right push will break him.”

Hawk Moth flips his hand to hold Mayura at the wrist. “You know his mind well. How did this happen?”

She snatches the arm back before he can read the spike in her pulse, but keeps her voice even. “A lot happened,” she says. “Before you made it to the Arc. I learned a lot about Chat Noir’s heart.”

“And didn’t tell me.”

Against her loyal tendencies, Mayura arches her neck, brow raised and fan fluttering. “I assumed you already knew.” She takes a quarter turn, facing the dark path back towards the main body of the mansion. “You must have been distracted… to not realize.”

“Of course I was.” Hawk Moth steps behind her and cages her shoulders in his arms. Mayura leans back against his chest and lets herself bask. “I was concerned for you.” Lips brush the length of her spine. “The last thing I want is to lose you too.”

Her breaths begin to come short and for an instant Mayura sees a future where she turns and lets Hawk Moth give in to his momentary passion. A future where the lights dim on the garden beneath their feet and they bury the ghosts that linger there. A perfect future.

“Stop.”

She pulls his hands away and steps beyond Hawk Moth’s reach. Mayura does not look back to see the look on his face. She has an image in her mind already, of what rejection looks like. Left unsteady by what has transpired, they stand in silence.

“... I'm sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

Even though she knows he cannot see her face from this position, Mayura presses her face against the feathers of her fan, letting the thick plumes drink the salt from her cheeks. “It’s- it’s alright. But now is not the time to dwell.”

“Yes.” Hawk Moth brings his cane down on the ground. “But how to proceed…”

“The heart is such a fragile, fickle thing.” Mayura’s fan slides shut and she turns to spy Hawk Moth over her shoulder. “Save your akuma, and wait. I can deliver Chat Noir to you.”

“You’re sure?”

“I can do this.”

For a moment Hawk Moth’s expression holds steady, and then melts into tired hope. She can see him push his better judgement to the wayside to step forward and into her space. His hand cups her cheek and Mayura does not have the strength to push him away. It is taking all her will to simply stand under the weight of what she knows she will do.

“Thank you,” he says and kisses her cheek. “For doing this for me.”

“And for Adrien.” She does not know if she could make herself deliver the cruelty required if it was simply for Gabriel. Only to satisfy the needs of the man who owns her heart. But for Adrien… who is undeserving of all the wrongs the world has delivered at his doorstep, she thinks she can. If she has learned nothing about the young man beneath the mask of Chat Noir, she has learned that he knows what it means to sacrifice.

She has seen him take arrows and the very touch of destruction for the girl he loves. And if circumstances were different, she is confident he would understand. He was the one to remind her of how much the boy meant to her, after all.

Mayura plucks a feather from the cuff of her coat. “I should go,” she says and takes another step back into the dark, leaving Hawk Moth where he stands.

From the light of the window he lets the powers of his miraculous recede and it is Gabriel left in its wake. He nods. “I will be waiting.”

She turns and does not stop until the wind of autumn cuts her cheeks. Carefully avoiding the paths she knows Adrien to take on his sojourns into the city she finds an area unfamiliar, but dense in traffic. Somewhere word is bound to spread to wherever Ladybug and Chat Noir spend their civilian lives. She holds the amok tight in her grasp and hides in the shadows of alleyways until the Agreste mansion is a looming silhouette in the distance. Then she breathes into it the shadows of life.

Power swells and in her chest, Mayura can feel the beating heart of her creation. Her will forms its shape and the resulting sentimonster takes on her own reflection. The Mayura copy stands erect, face devoid of emotion. This is not the complex facsimile of will she created to emulate Ladybug. This is simply a form meant to draw the eye. By the time Chat Noir gets close enough to know it for a fake, it will be too late. She opens her fan and her copy mirrors the gesture.

“Sentimonster, you are my decoy. Your purpose is this, draw out Ladybug and push her to the brink. Then wait for Chat Noir. Lure them both here, and I will take care of the rest.

Her copy sweeps into a bow. “Of course, Mayura.” With the echo of a gleam in her eye the copy takes to the rooftops and it is only moments later when the first shouts of alarm begin to ring out across the streets. Mayura begins her mental countdown.

Her hands are trembling, and already her energy wanes from the excessive draw of her broken miraculous. When the time comes she will need to be quick or risk this chance slipping through her fingers. A shadow whips by overhead and Mayura flattens herself against the alley wall.

“Chat Noir, it’s Ladybug. Meet me at my location and quick. Mayura’s here, we have to stop her before she has the chance to release her amok.”

There is the hum of string before Ladybug swings herself from her perch, presumably to chase the loose sentimonster. Mayura takes a shuddering breath. “Do you even realize,” she whispers into the dust left in Ladybug’s wake. “Everything you’re about to lose?” 

Mayura is sure that the girl does not. But by days end, she know she will. Grim knowledge awaits them both.


End file.
